10. & 11.12. Concerts and Performances with Juliana España Keller & Marcin Pietruszewski
The Professorship of Acoustic Ecologies and Sound Studies cordially invites you to two events: on Tuesday, 10 December 2024, 7.30 p.m., we welcome Juliana España Keller to her performance lecture »Our place is among the Stars«. On Wednesday, 11 December 2024, 7 p.m., Dr Marcin Pietruszewski will give a lecture and a concert entitled »Auditory Distortion Synthesis«.
Performance Lecture »Our place is among the Stars« by Juliana España Keller PHD
Time:
Tuesday 10 December 2024, 7.30 p.m
Location:
Limona, glass box
Steubenstrasse 8
99423 Weimar
In the performance lecture Juliana will provide an engaging talk around speculative research processes and its application to the field of plant bioacoustics. One enters into a sonic intra-active relation, by humans with non-human beings (plant life), activated through acoustic wave signals emitted by plants to create electronic patterns of sounds composed by humans and emitted by machines. Plants emit sound waves at relatively low frequencies of 50–120 Hz. Experimenting with patching and modulation by tracking these sonic lines of data can indeed lead to unique sonic experiences that tap into the universe’s musicology.
This presentation focuses on a symbiotic relation between humans and plant life as an acoustic shimmering ecology – to communicate a posthuman, symbiotic understanding of vegetal matter as a morphological force that (re)shapes, (re)affirms our sonic intra-relations to the natural world. This proposition is molecular and metaphysical, as sound matter is of a qualitative multiplicity in the quantum field of listening.
This entails expanding on plants as cosmogonic beings, world builders, and we, perhaps, are the byproducts of the lives of our vegetal others.
Juliana will finish her lecture with a short sound byte of their latest audio-visual work extracted from the immersive sonic and performative artwork: [mycelio] (2024) which is a 25:00 min. AI generated 4K video projection that is usually performed in a live architectural multi-channel sonic spatial installation scenario accompanied by a live performance by CEREUS.
Juliana España Keller, PhD is a Canadian/Swiss/British sound and performance artist engaged in radical entanglements with modular synthesis in sound art through speculative research. Juliana is interested in fluctuating sites with sensing subjects and tactile experimentation within participatory practices. In her feminist new materialist practice, Juliana uses simple electronic processes to observe different materialities of sound. She places electronic components which includes sensory stimuli in different situations of intra-action that affect the body. From these collisions, synthesized sounds emerge to sonic narratives or sonic recipes that she observes as radical entanglements in the natural world.
Juliana is a Professor/Lecturer in the Studio Arts Program of Concordia University, Faculty of Fine Arts in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. CEREUS: acoustic ecologies of the Anthropocene is a sound performance collective she shares with co-composer, Alexandre Pépin. CEREUS is interested in quantum listening—thus revealing the instrumental, microtonal, electronic forces and intensities of phenomena brought into a broader architectural space through a mind-body relation.
Juliana also manages and directs BAJO EL OLIVO International Creative Arts Residency in Alhaurín el Grande (Malaga) Spain. Juliana lives and works between Malaga and Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Lecture and concert »Auditory Distortion Synthesis« by Dr Marcin Pietruszewski
Time:
Wednesday, 11 December 2024, 7 p.m.
Location:
Faculty of Art and Design
Klanglabor
Marienstraße 5
99423 Weimar
The event focuses on the methods of digital sound synthesis based on auditory distortion products, often called combination tones. In 1856, Hermann von Helmholtz was the first to identify sum and difference tones as auditory distortion products. Today, this phenomenon is well studied in the context of otoacoustic emissions, and the »distortion« is understood as a product of the cochlear amplifier. These tones have had a rich history in the music of improvisers and drone artists (e.g. Maryanne Amacher or Phill Niblock). Until now, the use of distortion tones in technological music has primarily been rudimentary and dependent on very high amplitudes for distortion products to be heard by audiences. The new programmatic solution presented during the event expands the distortion synthesis to incorporate a broader dynamic range of traditional acoustic sound, thus making auditory distortion a practical domain for sound synthesis. The lecture discusses these synthesis methods' historical and technological contexts, while the concert demonstrates their aesthetic extension.
Marcin Pietruszewski is an Artistic Associate within the Acoustic Ecologies and Sound Studies Professorship, School of Media Art and Design, Bauhaus University, Weimar. He holds a PhD in Informatics and Music and an MSc in Digital Signal Processing, both from Edinburgh University, United Kingdom. He is engaged in sound synthesis and composition with computers, exploring specific formal developments in the tradition of electroacoustic music and contemporary sound art. He works across composition, pluriphonic installations, and radio productions. Recurring interests in his practice include synthetic sound, algorithmic systems, and the integration of scientific formalisms as compositional materials. His works have been exhibited at Remote Viewing (Philadelphia, 2019) and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London, 2017). Commissions include Sonic Acts (2024), CTM Festival (2021), ZKM Karlsruhe (2018), and Deutschlandradio Kultur (2016). Collaborations include a sound installation, »Auditory Scene Resynthesis as Cochlear Wavepackets« (HKW, Berlin, 2021) with Jan St. Werner; NORMIFICATION (Presto!?, 2024) with Florian Hecker. A recent sound installation - »Love Numbers« - with Anthea Caddy, premiered at the Venice Music Biennale 2023. Marcin has experience as an educator, designing and delivering courses focused on digital instrument design, digital signal processing, sound theory, and practice. He has taught at The Reid School of Music (Edinburgh College of Art, UK) and Design Informatics (The University of Edinburgh, UK). He also writes on computer music histories, aesthetics, and technology issues. His texts have been published by Hatje Cantz and ZKM, among others.